New from Cambridge University Press!

Sociolinguistics from the Periphery "presents a fascinating book about change: shifting political, economic and cultural conditions; ephemeral, sometimes even seasonal, multilingualism; and altered imaginaries for minority and indigenous languages and their users."

Book Information

This accessible new book provides a comprehensive introduction to thelinguistic structure of Portuguese. Clearly organised, it covers thecentral topics of syntax, phonology, morphology, semantics and pragmatics,and explores the social and historical background of Portuguese, itsdevelopment and spread in the world, and related sociolinguistic issuessuch as dialect variation and language planning. It also includes a chapteron Portuguese in Brazil, where approximately 80% of Portuguese speakerslive. Assuming very little prior knowledge of linguistic terminology,Portuguese: A Linguistic Introduction is designed to help intermediate andadvanced students of Portuguese understand how the language functions atall levels, and to give students of linguistics a useful starting point forwork on the structure of Portuguese. Keeping linguistic theory to aminimum, it focuses on presenting the linguistic facts in a clear and lucidway, providing a useful global overview of the Portuguese language and itssurrounding issues.